


listen, before i go

by ridtheblues



Category: IT, IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Eddie Kaspbrak - Freeform, Fix-It of Sorts, IT Chapter Two Spoilers, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Non-Canonical Character Death, Reddie, Richie Tozier - Freeform, Sort Of, Stanley Uris - Freeform, but also soft, fucking sad, obviously, richie stays with eddie in neibolt, sort of suicide but not graphic, they meet in the after life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-12 02:20:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20556608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ridtheblues/pseuds/ridtheblues
Summary: richie tozier dies when he is 42 years old. clearly he can’t remember much of it, but he distinctly remembers that not only was there a certain supernatural aspect involved, but that it was his choice to go as well.orwhat if richie didn't leave the neibolt house after the final fight, and instead he stayed with eddie? and found him again, in the most peculiar way.





	listen, before i go

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY HEAR ME OUT:
> 
> this is like, really really angsty, and like the complete opposite of everyone's fix-it fics in this tag right now but. i watched it chapter two for the second time last night, and i literally could not get this out of my head. so, like the crackhead i am, i sat up at 5am on no sleep and wrote this little mess. it's short, and for the tone of the story i avoided normal gramatical things like.. capitilization. which if you read anything else that i have written that is very unlike me. anyway, im aware this probably won't get too much interaction based on the fact that i wouldn't want to read anything like it right now, so. just so you know; i have a oneshot in the works right now for this ship, and its at 12k and not nearly over so expect that soon. it will be fluffy and soft and completely canon-divergent so. think of that as an apology for what you're about to read!

richie tozier dies when he is 42 years old. clearly he can’t remember much of it, but he distinctly remembers that not only was there a certain supernatural aspect involved, but that it was his choice to go as well.

he remembers being surrounded by his friends, his _best_ friends. all 7 of them. or had it been 6? there’s something tugging at his brain... a kid who he loved so much, arguably one of his closest friends, one he hadn’t gotten to see all grown up.

why had he seen them all? what had called him back to.. to this place? _derry_, his mind supplies. that’s where he had been. back in derry. a town he can’t remember forgetting. friends he loved so hard and couldn’t remember even missing until he had seen them all again, this overwhelming feeling of contentment rushing over his body because that was what he had been missing for so long. home, contentment, love.

_stan_. his brain reminds him. that was his name. _stanley_ _uris_. why hadn’t he seen him? why hadn’t he been down there? it’s so fuzzy... so frustratingly fuzzy now. he’d missed stan, he _misses_ stan.

that isn’t here nor there now, though, because his fingers curl as he nears unconsciousness, vaguely noting that he won’t wake up again, and he touches something cool and rough beneath soft wet fabric. he’s laying down, he realizes, and there’s someone on top of him. his hand is grazing through wet soft hair, slowing with each passing second. their head is curled into his shoulder, and richie has his other arm wrapped around their waist.

it smells.. like blood and dirt and sewer water and everything that it shouldn’t smell like. it does though, and he can’t do much to change it. he tightens his arms around the waist of whoever is lying on him, and it hits him with a sort of painful revelation that their arms are limp, and where he should be able to feel puffs of warm breath on his neck and a heartbeat against his chest he feels.. nothing. nothing except a cold cheek against his neck instead, and that awful smell of blood.

he can hear his friends, like echoes in his mind. they had left already, which was good. that’s what he had wanted them to do. he can’t remember why he was staying, but he’s got a feeling it has everything to do with the person lying on top of him. they had begged him, pulled him, nearly dragged him away kicking and screaming but eventually the adrenaline kicked in. frustration and fear and that lust for life that richie was so sure he had when he had walked down here earlier but now it’s of complete absence. he didn’t have any reason, to go on. they had defeated the evil, and he had lost a part of himself so great he knew he would never be able to get back again. i

t’s _eddie_, richie realizes, that’s whose lying on him, cold and limp and dead, _he’s fucking dead_. richie remembers now, kind of, that eddie had saved him and in return a sharp.. leg? was it seriously a leg? had been shoved through his chest. and richie.. richie had thought he was alive. for a split second, call it what you will, hope or shock or just stupidity, but he had been so sure eddie would walk out with him.

but he won’t, so in turn, richie won’t either.

he will lie here, as what’s left of the underneath of derry collapses around them, and he will hold eddie close and he will tell him everything he was too scared to tell him because it won’t matter anymore. after this, it’s just darkness, and rest. richie hopes it’s just a long, never ending dream. that way he can dream about him and eddie, eddie and richie, r + e, forever, until the world stops spinning or the universe collapses in on itself or whatever the fuck happens when you die.

he ignores the sickening voice that tells him eddie is already _there_, that he already _knows_ what happens, and instead settles for talking. he’s good at that.

“everything’s okay, you know?” richie says to eddie, but there’s no response. “or it will be. because you’re here, with me, you always made everything okay. and i loved you for it. i _love_ you for it, you hear me?” he continues, a little hysterically. he knows eddie can’t hear him. or maybe he can, he hopes he can. “i know that we, that we never got to— to thrive, like we deserved. that we never got our happy ending. but i want you to know that i loved you. i really, _really_ did.”

he hears a crash, too close to his head, and chooses to curl eddie’s head closer to his shoulder, protecting it. “i did something, a long time ago. and i never told you cause i thought you’d hate me. maybe you still would, but it doesn’t matter.” he pets eddies hair weakly, his breath slowing and his eyes fluttering shut, too tired to keep them open on his own. he continues breathily: “i carved our initials. into the kissing bridge? you remember that place? i did it so long ago, but i remember. i did it because— i don’t fucking know, eds,” he sighs and then shakes his head lightly. “sorry, eddie. i know you hated that. i did it because i think even then, at 16, i knew that no matter what happened you’d always... you’d always have a place with me. and if it wasn’t when we grew up then at least it could exist, perpetually in the past, on that bridge. and we’d never grow up, not there. there, were just initials. were just— just r + e. and we can stay there, you and me. okay?” richie pants, because talking is getting exhausting and his hands ache like stringing them through eddies hair and petting his back is the same as lifting weights. he stops his movements, instead holding eddie against him like he should’ve been doing this whole time, since he’d landed in this godforsaken town. “they didn’t understand, the others. but i couldn’t, i couldn’t just _leave_ you. not again. i left you once and then i forgot you and then i got you back, and i’m not letting you go. i’m not going to let myself forget you again. we will spend forever here, or on that bridge, or in space or as stars or whatever the fuck happens. i know you’re there, already. will you wait? for a bit? i’ll be there soon, i’ll see you so soon, eds. just wait, okay? i love you. i love you, i-“

he exhales in a final wheeze, and feels himself going under. where, he isn’t sure, but it’s almost like being submerged in warm water, the kind like at the quarry, in the summertime, where the water is warm and loose but filled with cold spots, the kind that make you shiver in the best way when you touch them. he feels a bit like oblivion, like he’s falling into the deepest, most comfortable sleep, but he’s completely aware of it all.

it hits him, at some point that maybe he isn’t dying. at least not yet. but his eyes stay closed even when he becomes distinctly aware that he can’t feel the ground below him or his own breath shakily rising and falling in his chest. he panics a bit, when he tries to grasp his arms around eddie again and he can’t feel his arms and he can’t feel eddie and that is just _so_ fucked up because if he’s going to feel this alert he’d like to have something to ground him.

suddenly, so suddenly, he feels his back again. a warm breeze cascades over his face, and there’s a prickling on his back like he’s lying on grass. the smell, of blood and dirt and sewer is replaced. instead, he smells hydrangeas, and sunscreen and that vague warm smell that is summer. he keeps his eyes squeezed shut, aware that the smell is infiltrating his lungs and nostrils even though he isn’t breathing, not consciously at least. he becomes aware of his arms first, and then his legs, and he lets his hands stroke the ground slowly. he was right, he can feel grass.

there’s a sharp giggle to his right ear that makes his eyes shoot open. and there—there. its eddie. its eddie, but he isn’t 41 and he isn’t covered in blood and dirty water and tears. he’s 17, and he’s wearing those stupid fucking shorts that used to make richie’s heart pound for reasons he couldn’t admit then, and a crisp white t-shirt. and he’s smiling, his eyes crinkled and his freckled nose scrunched up, soft brown hair curling on his head in no particular style. and he’s so _beautiful_, so free and so vivid that for a moment richie thinks everything had been a dream. that he’s still 17, dozed off in a nightmare in the barrens and eddie was waking him up cause richie snores in his sleep or some shit. but then eddie says:

“that was a real good speech, rich.” and richie knows. kind of. has a feeling that this is .. this is after. he blushes, he thinks, and he still feels a little too stunned and weak to move or sit up but he opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, and then closes it. opens, then closes, opens, then closes, almost like a fish. “that was fucking stupid, though, you shithead. why’d you stay? i would’ve waited forever, till you were old and grey and it was actually time for you to come here. there’s nowhere i have to be.”

“couldn’t be away from you, not again.” richie says, simply, reaching out to grasp one of eddie’s hands in his just to see if he can. he can, as it turns out, and eddies hand is soft and warm and delicate even if the rest of him isn’t. “you’re so young. i was just getting used to you as an old man and you had to switch it up on me, huh? had to make my heart really beat out of my chest?”

“says you,” eddie jokes, and he reaches up and pushes richie’s hair out of his face, a soft gesture, it makes richie’s breath hitch. “with your big eyes, and your stupid hawaiian shirt. totally the boy i fell for.”

“you feel that same, then?” richie asks, just to hear him say it.

“i think i've been in love with you forever.” eddie says, barely a whisper, and richie’s cheek settles into eddies hand contentedly. “it’s so good to see you.”

“you too.”

“and the others?” eddie asks, looking past richie for a second before meeting his eyes.

“we’ll see them. like you said, we have nowhere else to be.” richie sits up then, and leads his head in because he is going to kiss eddie kaspbrak, damnit, even if he couldn’t do it while he was alive. it’s then that yet another voice cuts through.

“oh come on,” and richie shoots up, and it’s stan. it’s fucking stan. and he’s 16 and lanky and curly and dressed like a pro-bowler or something of the like, and he’s smiling even though his face is set into a mock glare. “nuh uh, knock it off. i don’t know how long we have to stay here the three of us, but i will seriously find a way out if you two get this gay everyday.” richie belts out a laugh, excited, and looks at eddie a little wildly. eddie just smirks though, knowingly, and gestures his head up toward stanley.

richie stands, and suddenly stanley is right there, pulling him close and richie is flinging his arms around him. eddie joins at some point, and the three of them stand in a circle, arms grasped and summer breeze washing over their shoulders. this is it, the perpetual past. the one where r + e can exist happily, where they can make up for all that lost time and he can spend time with stanley, his best friend, learning everything he ever forgot about him and everything he missed even though here stan is still 16 and hasn’t even left yet.

the others will join them, one by one, and then they can continue on their journey. the seven of them. the lucky seven.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, thank you so much for reading. feel free but not compelled to leave comments and kudos and the like, even though they do make me very happy. come and talk to me! you can find me on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/ridtheblues) as im there 90% of my time.


End file.
